In 1951, the Civil Rights Congress, an organization closely affiliated with the Communist Party (CPUSA), drew up a petition to deliver to the United Nations (UN). Entitled “We Charge Genocide,” the 237-page document laid out, with extensive corroboration, the lynchings, wrongful executions, and voter suppression African Americans endured.

There was just one problem: the petition’s two most prominent signatories, Paul Robeson and W. E. B. DuBois, had both had their passports revoked by the US State Department for their outspoken radicalism and couldn’t make the trip to France. When African-American Communist William L. Patterson finally hand-delivered the document, the US government announced its intention to seize his travel documents as well. Patterson fled France, but was detained in the UK, on order of the US government. Upon his arrival in the US, Patterson had his passport physically taken.

A decade later, the State Department’s penchant for restricting the travel of dissidents would take a particularly Kafkaesque turn. After becoming the first American journalist to report from post-revolution China, William Worthy of the Baltimore Afro-American had his password revoked.